Yves Camille Désiré Leterme (Dutch
pronunciation: [iːf
ləˈtɛʀmə]) (born 6 October 1960) is a Belgian politician, a leader of the Christian
Democratic and Flemish party (CD&V) and the current Belgian Prime
Minister.

On 14 July 2008, facing the imminent failure to meet a self
imposed deadline to enact "constitutional reform" consisting of
further devolution of powers to the nation's three linguistic
communities, Leterme tendered his resignation to King
Albert II, the head of state. On 17 July, King Albert, after
holding a flurry of consultations with leaders of political
parties, labor unions, and the employers' association, rejected
Leterme's resignation. Instead, the king appointed a three person
commission of representatives of the linguistic communities to
investigate how to restart the reform process. The commission was
to report to the king by 31 July 2008.[1]

Career

Before entering national politics, Leterme served as an auditor
at the country's Court of Audit (Dutch: Rekenhof, French: Cour des Comptes). He then
became adjunct and then national secretary of the CVP until he resigned to
become a civil servant with the European Union. In 1997 he went on
indefinite leave from that position when he was appointed Member of
the Belgian Parliament. He has been a member of
the city council of Ypres since
1995. He served as alderman of Ypres from 1995 to 2001.

He was appointed to the House of Representatives in 1997, elected
in 1999 and 2003. After the defeat of the CD&V in the general elections of
2003, he succeeded Stefaan De Clerck as party chairman.
In 2004 Yves Leterme became Minister-President of the Flemish
government. Flanders has fared well during his term in office. Yves
Leterme took a pragmatic course of increasing the economic dynamic
and social wellbeing in Flanders. He has made the Flemish
government into the ‘investment government’, focusing the
investments on the infrastructure and logistics with respect to
both the business climate and social wellbeing (notably Flanders
Port Area, homes for the elderly, child care, and immigrant
integration). In order to accelerate investment he has successfully
encouraged the use of the PPP structures. Additionally, Yves
Leterme’s government implemented rigorous budgeting – his
government started with a sizeable implicit debt in Flanders which
has been reduced to zero as the result of his policies.[5]

In the elections held on 10 June 2007, Leterme received 796,521
personal votes, leading his party to a landslide victory. This was
the second highest amount of personal votes ever in Belgium’s
national elections. On 21 December 2007, he became Vice-Prime
Minister of Belgium and Minister of Budget, Transport,
Institutional Reform and the North Sea. On 23 March, Leterme
received confidence of the chamber as Prime Minister.

Controversies

Many French-speaking journalists take offence at Leterme's
political opinions on the (in Flanders) widely supported demand for
more Flemish autonomy. They consistently decry him for making
provocative or erroneous statements.

During an interview with the French newspaper Libération in
August 2006, Leterme, who is himself bilingual and the son of a French-speaking
father, made a remark about the overall failure and refusal of
French-speaking inhabitants to learn and use Dutch in certain
municipalities, more specifically in municipalities with
language facilities.

“

Initially, the idea was
that many French speakers would adjust to the new linguistic
reality. But apparently the French speakers are intellectually not
capable of learning Dutch.[6][7]

”

Most prominent Francophone politicians such as Elio Di Rupo[8] and Isabelle Durant
along with some Flemish politicians such as Pascal Smet and Guy Vanhengel[9]
objected to this remark. In the Flemish daily De Standaard of 28
August Leterme explained his words: "I am allowed to ask myself the
question whether the lack of knowledge of Dutch is a matter of not
wanting or not being able to."[10]

A news report produced by the Belgian Francophone television
company RTBF alleged that Leterme
said in the Flemish parliament: "I don't need the King"[11][12].
According to Flemish newspapers, this sentence was taken out of
context, because Leterme was talking about the creation of Flemish
statutes (decrees): legislation approved by the Flemish parliament,
unlike federal legislation, does not need the king's signature in
order to become law. The Flemish Minister-President signs the
decrees himself.[13]

On one occasion, Leterme quipped that the only things common to
all Belgians are "the King, the football team, some beers...". Upon
being asked by a television journalist to name which event is
commemorated by Belgium's national day (21 July), Leterme wrongly
replied that it was the proclamation of the constitution, when the
correct answer is the coronation of the nation's first King, Leopold I
of Belgium. Subsequently, he was asked if he knew the French
version of the Belgian national anthem, "the
Brabançonne," whereupon he began to sing the French national
anthem.[14][15]

Leterme caused controversy again in a December 2007 interview
with the Concentra newspapers by denouncing Belgium's Francophone
public broadcast network, the RTBF, for having its own political
agenda, being a propagandist for CDH politician Joëlle
Milquet, and being a relic of the past. Leterme further
compared the broadcaster to Radio Mille
Collines, which was a Rwandan propaganda outlet against the Tutsis during the Rwandan
Genocide, though he later mentioned he had only quoted what was
said in political circles.[16]

2007
general elections

On 6 May 2007, he officially launched his candidacy for the
general election on 10 June 2007, leading his party's list of
candidates.[17] On
election day, he received about 800,000 preferential votes, which
is the second largest number of votes ever gained in the history of
Belgian elections. This was one of the greatest monster tallies in
recent Belgian history (the previous comparable score was obtained
by Leo
Tindemans).

Based on this personal tally, on the successful tally of his
party, and on the general election tallies which saw progress for
most parties making the strongest demands for greater Flemish
autonomy, such as CD&V, N-VA and the new Lijst Dedecker LDD), status quo for the
left-wing Greens, and regression for the far right Vlaams Belang and
parties making only modest demands for greater Flemish autonomy,
such as OpenVLD and SP.A. Leterme as
formateur
convened the negotiations to form a coalition government,
negotiations which would turn out to be protracted and initially
lead to a stalemate.

On 29 September, Herman Van Rompuy, "explorer" in the
coalition seeking process, presented his final report to the King.
Later that day, King Albert II again appointed Leterme as
formateur.[20] On 7
November, his party took the initiative and got the Flemish
representatives to vote on the most crucial aspect of the
negotiations, the splitting of the electoral region of Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde, a
measure strongly opposed by the Francophone community.

Leterme again offered his resignation to the King on 1 December,
after coalition talks failed to reach an agreement on several
issues.[21]

An interim government under Guy Verhofstadt was sworn in on 21
December 2007. In it, Leterme became Deputy Prime Minister and
Minister of the Budget, Institutional Reform, and Transport. He was
anticipated to become Prime Minister in a new government in March
2008.[22]

Belgium's political uncertainty further deepened when Yves
Leterme was hospitalised on 14 February 2008.[23][24]
Rumours that he was suffering from hepatitis were formally denied by a
spokesman[25][26], and
it was later disclosed that he had suffered internal
bleeding in the gastrointestinal
tract. His duties as Minister for Budget and Institutional
Reform were temporarily taken over by Jo Vandeurzen (CD&V), the Minister for Justice.[27]

First
premiership

On 18 March 2008, an agreement between five parties on the
formation of the new government was announced.[28]
Leterme was sworn in as Prime Minister on 20 March,[29]
and his government was approved by the Chamber of Representatives
on 22 March, with 97 votes in favour, 48 against, and one
abstaining.[30]

For Leterme, priority issues were still further devolution of
power to Belgium's regions, which would require amending the
national constitution, and resolving dissatisfaction with the
administrative status of the districts of Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde. He
set a deadline of 15 July 2008 to accomplish these goals. The
deadline was not met. On 15 July 2008, King Albert II issued a
communiqué that Leterme had offered his resignation to the king,
and that the king was reserving his decision on whether to accept
the resignation.[31] The
next day, the king held consultations with the leaders of political
parties, the employers' association, and trades unions. By the end
of the day, it was still not resolved whether Leterme would
actually be departing from the prime ministership.[32]
Leterme declared, "It appears that the [language] communities'
conflicting visions of how to give a new equilibrium to our state
have become incompatible . . . state reform remains essential".[33]

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Fortis and fall of
government

Along with his counterparts in the Netherlands and Luxembourg, Leterme decided to nationalize
ailing financial-services company Fortis. The company was split and the
Belgian government sold the Belgian part to French bank BNP Paribas. The
shareholders, who were not consulted in the sale, sued the Belgian
state. Although at first the government won, on appeal the Court of Appeal reversed the
judgement of the lower court and ordered the freezing of the sale.
Following the verdict, First President Ghislain Londers of the Court of Cassation
indicated that government officials had tried to influence the
judges.[34]
Leterme tendered his resignation and that of his government on 19
December 2008, which was accepted by King Albert II on 22
December.

Vietnam

Yves Leterme started a two-day visit to Vietnam Tuesday 11 August 2009 to boost
bilateral and multifaceted cooperation between the two countries.
It was his first official visit to Vietnam since Leterme took up
his post as foreign minister the previous month.[36]
Leterme met with Vietnamese officials to strengthen bilateral
relations and cooperation in several sectors including politics,
economics, and trade and investment, as well as discussed regional
and global issues that are of interest to both sides. Vietnam is
currently the only Asian country receiving preferential development
aid from the Belgian
government for the 2007-2010 period, in the amount of 32
million euro (US$45 million). In 2008, two-way trade reached nearly
$1.4 billion and Belgium is now Vietnam's fourth largest export
market among EU countries.[37]